


beautiful things

by looketh_its_brooketh



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Art, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Good Parent Grace Hargreeves, Pop Culture, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, everyone (except reggie) gets the happiness they deserve, grace-centric (bc she deserves it), she's a queen and deserves the world, yes i'm projecting my love of academia onto grace why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28423488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/looketh_its_brooketh/pseuds/looketh_its_brooketh
Summary: Reginald Hargreeves reluctantly encourages the study of art. Grace Hargreeves encourages its appreciation.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Grace Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Grace Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Grace Hargreeves, Grace Hargreeves & Dr. Pogo, Grace Hargreeves & Everyone, Grace Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Grace Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Grace Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Grace Hargreeves
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	beautiful things

What the public doesn’t know about being a part of the Hargreeves household is that unless you are one of the members of the Umbrella Academy or Mr. Reginald Hargreeves himself, you’ll wind up having quite a lot of time to yourself.

Grace Hargreeves—who fits into neither of these categories--has grown used to being alone. In between being a mother and acting as one of the two members of Reginald’s unofficial staff, there are many silent hours free of the usual daily work. It’s not such a bad thing, this period of aloneness. The children have their lessons, Reginald has his teaching, and she has her paintings.

They’ve been in this house as long as it’s stood—covering the wall of a cozy nook on the upper level of the house. Grace likes to sit before them on the soft leather couch with her cross stitch. It’s the perfect viewing point. She spends most of her time here, in this spot, in the long hours that have only grown longer as the children have grown with them. 

Pogo—who has also found himself being needed less and less over the past few years—says that it is a lovely pastime. He spends most of his own free time in the library, reading books that are thicker than her arm. Reginald, for his part, disagrees with the sentiment.

“One can only look at a piece of art so many times before it is memorized and becomes uninteresting,” he’s said on a passing occasion when he happened to find himself in what she has claimed as Her Nook. “I just find it a bit silly.” 

Grace doesn’t reply, just smiles daintily and returns to her crafting. He still comes by every now and again when he isn’t busy, and his small, almost imperceptible chuckles sting in a way that she doesn’t exactly know how to explain. She studies the painted face of a dark-haired woman. The woman doesn’t laugh at her—she merely smiles, as if relishing in the finery of her dress and the easiness of her posture. Grace touches a hand to her own pearls and tries to match the woman’s pose. Her own smile follows soon after.

\-----

As Grace spends more time with her paintings, she also begins to spend more time in the library with Pogo. Like Her Nook, he seems to have taken the space for his own; it is a soothing place, with classical music constantly playing and velvet armchairs and always a pot of tea waiting to be shared. Pogo seems to have a taste for the finer things for life, and Grace thinks that she might, too. When she isn’t with her paintings, she’s perched in a chair in front of the roaring fireplace, sharing a cup of rose hip tea with the doctor. Well, technically she doesn’t drink the tea, but it’s fun to hold the delicate teacup as they discuss art and books and everything in between.

Grace asks him about the portrait of dark-haired woman, and he lends her a book of French paintings from the Age of Revolution. The woman’s name, she learns, is Madame Jacques-Louis Leblanc. She should have guessed—the woman certainly does look like a Madame, doesn’t she? Immediately, she moves as quickly as deemed socially acceptable to share the news with Pogo, her heels making satisfying clicks against the floor. Pogo refuses to take the book back from her when she finishes with it, instead smiling a _Mona Lisa_ -esque smile and passing her three others. 

She devours them, one after the other, on the leather couch before the paintings. 

\-----

Despite his serious demeanor and obvious preference for the more ‘serious’ aspects of training children with special abilities, Reginald doesn’t entirely exclude art from his curriculum. The kids have classes in art history, literature, and Vanya of course has her violin. Grace is thrilled the day he introduces a class in ballroom dancing. It’s a treat, watching the six normally stoic children whirl around and struggle to keep the beat. She even steps in sometimes to be a dance partner when needed. It shows her a side of the kids that is so characteristically _them_ : Luther’s slight hesitations barely prominent when he’s the one leading, Diego’s almost battle-worthy commitment and passion, Allison’s effortless poise (the vision is only slightly altered by her little smirk—she knows she’s one of the best in the room), Klaus’ fun-loving spirit (his constant at ease state makes him just as talented as Allison), Ben’s sweet disposition as he softly repeats the steps to himself, and Vanya’s concentration on hitting every beat (she’s right up there with Allison and Klaus, in Grace’s opinion). 

They seem to almost let go of some invisible weight in moments like these—like the pressure placed on them that Grace is starting to become aware of more and more everyday melts away, just a little. It’s beautiful, but there’s also something ever so slightly off about it, because surely it’s not just her imagination that none of the children look quite happy? She thinks of Madame Leblanc as she watches a slightly toned-down Allison leading a very shy Ben in a waltz around the room one day; her dear Madame, who seems so at peace in her lovely things. If she had ever danced, she must have had a better time than this—Grace is sure of it. The Umbrella Academy doesn’t seem to find much pleasure in anything that is supposed to be something of a break from their regular studies; Reginald barks out the rhythm of the song (Tchaikovsky’s _Serenade for Strings_ , she later learns from Vanya), and they dance. They study famous artists but are never allowed to say whether they like said artists’ works. They read the classics— _The Old Man and the Sea_ , _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ —but the children never discuss the interesting bits outside of classes like she and Pogo do with Austen and Christie and their other favorites. Each little piece of the world Grace is quickly falling in love with is merely a box to be checked off. It should be considered a crime, in her opinion, for it to believed that things that make you feel don’t matter.

\-----

She sits in Her Nook, mind busily at work concocting some sort of devious plot to fix whatever this is. There’s no doubt that Reginald Hargreeves is a learned and capable man, but what’s the point in learning about interesting things like art and music when the teacher finds them a waste of time?  
It turns out, however, that her plan, which is full of very loose ends, isn’t necessary, because one day, Diego comes to her.

His eyes are shining, but not in the way that a teenage boy’s should be. It breaks her nonexistent heart. She pats the seat next to her, and he plops down on the leather couch. 

“D-dad said to c-come here,” Diego mutters, hands bunched in his lap. “F-for _help_.”

For help. It’s an ugly thought hidden behind a pretty word. Reginald has always sent Diego to Grace whenever his stutter becomes more prominent—which usually happens when he’s angry or upset or excited—and she’s always been willing to work with him, because she’s his mom. It’s her job, and the joy she gets to see on her boy’s face when he overcomes a particularly tricky word is all the reward she needs. The problem doesn’t lie in that—it’s the fact that Reginald places so much emphasis on Diego’s stutter being something that needs to be fixed, as if the rest of his skills are useless if one part of him isn’t exactly what the man deems ‘right’. 

Diego seems especially upset today and really, there must be a better way than just sending him off to be alone with his thoughts after a few speech exercises.

“Why don’t you just sit with me,” she says, running her hands through his hair, “just for a few minutes.” 

Diego nods sullenly. 

Grace trails a soft hand down his cheek and then returns to her embroidery. They sit in comfortable silence for a bit as she works. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices him looking upwards. 

“They’re pretty, aren’t they?” she says, putting an arm around him.

He nods again, leaning into her touch. “H-have these always been here?”

“Mm-hmm. For as long as I have. Probably even before then.”

“Wow.” He looks at where her embroidery hoop—and what should turn out to be an image of a goldfinch—lays unfinished in her lap. “What’s that?”

“My current project.” He looks at it longingly, fingers tapping against her skirts. “Would you like to learn how to cross stitch, dear?”

“As long as you don’t tell Luther,” he replies, looking up at her. ‘Or Dad’ is left unspoken.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make beautiful things,” she tells him. She has the sudden urge to hug him and does. “Let me go grab what you’ll need.”

He’s very aggressive with the needle at first—Diego has more control over his limbs then, say, Luther, but he also has a warrior’s spirit that shows itself in everything he does. Soon, however, he has made fantastic progress on his embroidery; Grace can’t tell exactly what it’s going to be, but she knows it’s going to be perfect. Diego, for all of his easily accessed brusqueness and harder to find softness, is an incredibly talented kid.

\-----

She doesn’t know what causes it, but once Diego visits her little corner of the world, the others do as well—one by one. 

Ben is the next to visit her, one rainy night. She must have a question in her eyes, because he explains, “Klaus was being loud while I was trying to read.” He stands there for a second, as if waiting for an invitation, and at Grace’s beckoning, comes to sit carefully on the couch.

After a brief glance at the gallery before him, he opens his nearly completed (judging from the placement of the bookmark) copy of _The Iliad_ and begins to read, settling in beside her. When he finishes, he thanks her, gives her a quick hug and leaves. 

Ben returns regularly after that night, becoming more and more vocal every visit. He tells her that he enjoys most of the books that Reginald assigns, but confides that he didn’t really like _The Old Man and the Sea_. It was kind of boring. Grace lends him a collection of Agatha Christie’s _Poirot_ mysteries, and it’s these he likes to talk about the most with her, predicting the endings and commenting on every twist and turn. She even reads aloud to him sometimes, when he’s had a particularly rough day (fictional deaths, it seems, are easier to cope with than real ones). Although, she will admit that Ben had to read the ending of _Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case_ to her. It ended up being too disheartening for the both of them. They like to pretend that it doesn’t exist. 

\-----

Klaus follows Ben, plopping down next to his mother as she gazes up at Madame and co. He brings a sense of whimsy to Her Nook, prone to making up wild stories about the people and places in each painting. One tale about a misplaced hat and a mob of angry apples sticks in her mind at such a level that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to look at Da Vinci’s _Last Supper_ the same way ever again. All she has to do is look at the figure they’ve determined to be Peter’s face and she breaks out into Klaus’ contagious laughter. He’s joyous, easily excited, and without any coaxing from her, falls head over heels with the colors and unspoken symbolism and the sheer, simple pleasure of being around art. She would expect nothing less from the boy who borrowed her heels.

\-----

Allison wanders in next, her eyes immediately drawn to Madame Jacques-Louis Leblanc. “That one’s my favorite,” she announces with the confidence that Grace has always admired in her.

Grace laughs. “You’ve barely looked at them! But you have good taste, honey.”

“You know,” her daughter says, “you look a bit like her. In the eyes, and how she sits.”

“You think so? Well, how about now?” She poses--arms draped, chin up—in the way she’s practiced for who knows how long.

Allison giggles. “Perfect.”

\-----

Luther looks a bit uncomfortable in Her Nook. He’s just a bit taller than Grace as he sinks down beside her. 

“Do you need something, Luther?” Grace asks.

“Allison said it was cool up here,” he says sheepishly. 

“I hope it is.”

He takes a look around the room, taking in the ceiling, the feel of the couch, the paintings. “It is,” he decides. “I like that window. It lets in some nice light.”

She’d never noticed before. “Huh. It does, doesn’t it?”

He nods, looking a bit pleased with himself. “Maybe I should come up here more.”

Grace ruffles his hair. “I think you should, too.”

\-----

Vanya is the only one of the six that Grace has to seek out. Grace is pacing the halls, checking on the children when needed, when she hears the girl practicing. The song entrances Grace; it makes her think of loneliness, and the open water, and suddenly, she’s picturing a very certain thing. She waits until Vanya has stopped playing to knock on her door.

“That was lovely, Vanya,” Grace tells Vanya when she is given the okay to enter the room. Vanya quietly thanks her. “Can I show you something, dear? I think you’ll like it.”

And that’s how Vanya finds herself seated beside her mother in the gallery on the second floor. She’s quieter than the rest of the children, content with just sitting and slightly slouching, like she’s caving in on herself. 

“Vanya,” Grace begins, “that song you were playing so well. What is it called?”

“ _A May Breeze_. It’s by Kreisler.”

“That’s a very pretty title. Vanya, when I heard you play that song, I—well, it made me think of this painting here.” She gestures to an image of a young man staring out at a roaring sea—Caspar David Friedrich’s _Wanderer above the Sea of Fog_. “Do you see it? Maybe it’s silly, but I really think Kreisler’s song embodies this painting perfectly.”

Vanya gets a faraway look in her eyes, bobbing her head slightly as if hearing a silent song. She nods. 

“I’m glad you agree,” Grace says genuinely. “Darling, I don’t think I could ever get tired of hearing you play. You do it so well.” She thinks for a moment. “You know, you’re not so different from Friedrich, or Ingres, or even Van Gogh. With your music, you create emotion, and joy, and sadness, just like they do.” She turns to Vanya. “It’s a wonderful gift.”

Vanya blushes, staring at her shoes. Then, she sits up straight and says, “I think there’s a Bach piece that would fit well with that picture of the man and the woman at the table.”

“ _Lovers in a Café_? It’s one of my favorites. You’ll have to play that piece for me sometime.”

\-----

She can only imagine it, but Grace knows exactly how Five would act if he had the chance to visit Her Nook. He would act bored at first but would quickly become talkative, taking equal time to examine every piece of art available to him. Grace would tell him the histories of all the paintings and their artists—she knows all about them now, thanks to Pogo. Five—clever, sensible, reckless Five--would have made a good art critic. She’s sure of it. 

\-----

They continue to visit her—sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. Allison and Klaus are an unstoppable duo, acting out miniature performances as incredibly exaggerated characters from the paintings. They can never get far in their improvised script without bursting into laughter. Ben and Vanya sit quietly, Ben working his way through _Emma_ while his sister makes a list of violin pieces embodied by each work. The oddest grouping is Luther and Diego. At first, Grace is a little worried when Luther enters the room without Diego noticing—hard at work on his cross stitch, as always—but when Diego finally does look up and sees the tall boy roaming Her Nook aimlessly, examining every floorboard and windowpane, he simply gives Luther a nod in greeting, which Luther returns. 

Every now and then, Grace wonders whether their father has been curious about where his students all go off to during their free periods—if he’d be angry, if he knew the truth. She isn’t sure, and she’ll likely never know.

\-----

Her accidental teaching reaches its peak one day when Diego scrambles in, a huge grin on his face.

“Mom!” he pants, screeching to a stop in front of her, “I j-just had the b-best idea!”

“Diego,” she laughs, placing steadying hands on his shoulders, “slow down, honey. Here, sit by me. I want to hear this great idea.”

“Okay,” Diego says, finally calm enough to form a coherent thought. “We should go to an art museum.”

An art museum. The thought of it is—well, it’s magical. Grace loves her paintings—but seeing the ones she’s only read about, in person? It sounds like the finest, loveliest, most beautiful thing she could possibly imagine. “Oh, Diego, love, that’s a wonderful idea.”

“And we could bring Ben!” Diego continues, only becoming more excited as the plan becomes more and more real.

“And Vanya—” Grace reminds him, a grin of her own slowly forming.

“Yeah, I guess Vanya can come, she likes that stuff—”

“And Luther and Allison.”

Diego pouts, dreams ever so slightly crushed. “They won’t understand it.”

Grace boops his nose, which he shies away from with a look of disgust that can only come from a son who secretly loves his mother. “It’s the nice thing to do, honey.”

“Okay, okay. But can we?”

Grace pulls him closer. The sound of Vanya’s practicing drifts into the gallery, creating a vision of lights and finery and _art_. “I’ll talk to your father.” She can convince him; she knows she can. She has to. 

\-----

She does so that evening, and it is far easier than she could have possibly imagined. 

“Alright,” Reginald says simply, not even looking up from his work. 

Grace makes sure not to react too shocked. “Wonderful!”

“I’m sure you and Allison will enjoy it.”

She and Allison. As if only _certain people_ can enjoy art. 

“I—was planning on taking all of the children, sir,” she tells him, brushing invisible wrinkles from her skirt. Something that feels an awful lot like bitterness builds up in her throat.

He only pauses for a second before returning to staring at whatever it is on his desk. “Well. If you must.”

The next morning, she finds seven tickets lying in her spot on the leather couch before the paintings. 

\-----

Unfortunately, when the blessed day arrives, tragedy strikes, as it so often does in cases like these. A wire in Grace’s recharging station goes haywire, and Pogo has to spend the rest of the day fixing it. This also means that Grace, unable to get a full recharge the night before, is unable to go to the museum. She isn’t sure how long the station has been broken—she doesn’t know how long she could last out in public. 

She can’t go, Pogo can’t go, and Reginald, she knows, can’t be bothered to even consider it. So, a sad smile on her lips, she tells a crestfallen Diego to take a few dollars from her purse and tell the Umbrella Academy to go to the art museum on their own.

“Have a fantastic time,” she tells him, trusting him to pass the message along to his siblings. “And tell me all about it when you get back.”

\-----

Grace isn’t sure how long she’s asleep, but when she wakes up, Pogo has gone and she feels fully recharged. But the kids are there, scattered between the couch and floor. Their cheeks are rosy, eyes excited. 

“How was the museum, my darlings?” she asks them.

They all answer over each other, but the general consensus seems to be that it truly was a fantastic time. 

“We have something for you,” Diego says, motioning for Klaus to bring something over.

“We took pictures!” Klaus exclaims, sliding next to Grace to click through the many, many images of paintings and sculptures. The other five—Luther, Diego, Allison, Ben, and Vanya—cluster around her, reminiscing about the trip and asking her how she feels about each work.

But Grace, for once, is barely able to focus on the art. Looking at the children’s— _her children’s_ —faces, all here, all together, brought together by something she has grown to care so much about? She doesn’t think she will ever be lonely again.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in one day. thus, i am very tired, but also very proud. ms. grace deserves the world, and the kids deserve the world (especially diego), and so does pogo. go out there and appreciate art and beauty in everything!! also if you caught my goldfinch reference there ily. thank you so much for reading!!!


End file.
